Environmental Economics

Quote of the Day: Freedom Fries the Redux

Ladies and gentleman, an actual press release from the Department of Energy (with EMPHASIS ADDED): 

“Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy. Further, more exports of U.S. LNG to the world means more U.S. jobs and more domestic economic growth and cleaner air here at home and around the globe,” said U.S. Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes, who highlighted the approval at the Clean Energy Ministerial in Vancouver, Canada. “There’s no doubt today’s announcement furthers this Administration’s commitment to promoting energy security and diversity worldwide.”

“Approval of additional LNG exports from Freeport LNG furthers this Administration’s commitment to promoting American energy, American jobs, and the American economy. Further, increased supplies of U.S. natural gas on the world market are critical to advancing clean energy and the energy security of our allies around the globe. With the U.S. in another year of record-setting natural gas production, I am pleased that the Department of Energy is doing what it can to promote an efficient regulatory system that allows for molecules of U.S. freedom to be exported to the world,” said Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Steven Winberg, who signed the export order and was also in attendance at the Clean Energy Ministerial.

I was going to make a joke about spreading molecules of gas wherever I go, but then I thought that might be beneath me.

When you're dealing with the current EPA administration, the humor writes itself

Really, could you have made this up?

Hat Tip: Paul Jakus

 

Just another day around here

I violated "proper decorum" for 8 (long) years

Matt Kahn's blog just got boring:

My term as the Chair of USC Economics starts this week.  Proper decorum suggests that I should no longer be blogging.   I've decided on a compromise path.  I will no longer write about current events or politics or my humor.   I will write about my own research and about activity at USC Economics. Of course, I will be a cheerleader for USC and readers are free to filter my slanted messages.

via greeneconomics.blogspot.com

Tim hasn't violated "proper decorum" for quite as long but he isn't a former department chair/head yet so he is currently violating it.

I have to say, the professional penalties for violating "proper decorum" have been rather severe. For example, I've been blacklisted from publishing in the top 5 journals for the past 8 years. I'm not sure if the blacklist will be lifted now that I'm a former chair. I guess the only way to find out is to take my most recent and/or best paper, reduce the font, add a 30 page appendix of redundant robustness checks and submit it to the AER. 

One email subscription at a time #resist

From the inbox:

You have made the following changes to your U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development subscriptions:

You unsubscribed from topics:

Research Grants, Fellowship, and SBIR

My new autoresponse to appstate.edu emails

Hello,

John Whitehead is happy to report that he is no longer a part-time academic administrator (i.e., Economics Department Chair). If your email is regarding department business, please redirect it to our new chair Todd Cherry at cherrytl at appstate.edu.

John Whitehead is also happy to report that he is on Off-Campus Scholarly Assignment (i.e., sabbatical) in Fall 2017 and back to teaching, research and service in Spring 2018. If your email is about non-department business, he'll reply ASAP (or maybe not).

Thanks,

John Whitehead

P.S. For the remainder of his academic career, John Whitehead will refer to himself in the third person.

New review guidelines

I'm taking this one seriously:

President-Elect Mr. Donald Trump has tweeted that he will require all reviewers for all journals and grant agencies to end all reviews with the word “Sad!”

Trump tweeted that all reviewers should be required to select the wording for their reviews from an approved list of words.

The approved list of words includes “Stupid”, “Dumb”, “Weak”, “Loser”, “Politically Correct”, “Moron”, “Tough”, “Dangerous”, “Bad”, “Lightweight”, “Amazing”, “Huge”, “Tremendous”, “Terrific” and “Out of Control”.

On occasion, reviewers will be allowed to say “Snowflake” and “Classy”.

Reviewers will be prevented from saying why anything is stupid or dumb or what might be done to correct the problem.  They will be obliged to only issue vague solutions and these solutions must be four words long at most and readable by a typical eight-year-old. ...

via www.theallium.com

And could we just tweet out our reviews? A 140 character assertion would be a lot easier than the thoughtful page or so that I'm currently attempting. 

Hat tip: retractionwatch.com

I always use gmail when I have something interesting to say to Tim

Jonathan Rees:

Earlier this year, word broke that the University of California system secretly established a way by which it could monitor and read faculty emails. It defies belief that the UC system is the only one to do so. As is the case with any employer these days, your college or university can read your .edu email because it wants to target you for some reason. It can also read your work email for kicks. ...

Using a private email account is not really private when you’re conducting what the state deems to be public business. “As Hillary Clinton has learned the hard way, using your personal email account when doing government work doesn't make the content of those emails exempt from public records laws,” noted a 2015 story about former University of Illinois Phyllis M. Wise. She used private emails to get around public records requests from Steven G. Salaita’s legal team, and resigned from her post after those emails were released.

The same dynamic applies to faculty — as William Cronon, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, found out when the state Republican party filed the equivalent of a Freedom of Information Act request for his university emails. Cronon could have corresponded through private email. With no lawsuit over the matter, those emails might never have been subpoenaed. But had there been a lawsuit, they could have been subpoenaed, as the Wise example suggests.

It’s impossible for faculty to get total protection from having our email observed. But we can make it a little harder to have our email quite so easily monitored by our employer. Here’s how:

• If you don’t have a personal email account, get one.
• If you do have a personal email account, don’t be afraid to use it more often.
• Make a conscious, intellectually defensible decision about what your employer and the public has a right to know about your job and what they don’t.
• Then divide your email activity accordingly. Yes, you should still worry that whatever you write could be accessed by people whose interests are far different from your own, but you shouldn’t make it easier for them to see your electronic correspondence just because you think your Gmail account seems unprofessional.

Most faculty may never have to worry about these issues. However being cautious will greatly increase the chances that you will be able to maintain at least a modicum of privacy in the course of doing your job.

Source: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1535-nobody-cares-about-your-edu-anymore. 

I always assume that someone is reading every email I send from appstate.edu. And I have those twisted gut feelings for days afterwards when I write something that I shouldn't. I make fun of env-econ readers with Tim via gmail and I thought it was safe. Now I guess it will be mostly via text or musical.ly.

Tim: you should propose a special issue anyway

Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine doesn't care if you are an economist. I proposed an off-topic special issue and here is the response (emphasis added):

Dear John,

I am glad that you are interested in Lead Guest Editing a Special Issue on Measuring the nonmarket value of recreational fishing for Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine. In order to move forward, you will need to select a topic and then invite two to four Guest Editors of appropriate seniority to work with you on the Special Issue. The Guest Editors should be geographically dispersed and have the time and capacity to work on this Special Issue. They should also be willing to actively participate in the review process of the submitted manuscripts. As Lead Guest Editor, you are required to select, contact, and get the approval of the team of Guest Editors to participate in the issue.

You will also need to prepare a tentative Call for Papers containing the proposed aims, scope, and list of topics for the Special Issue and send it to me. I have attached a few Calls for Papers from other recently launched Special Issues as relevant examples.

In addition to the proposed Call for Papers, you may submit a cover letter in which you answer some of the following questions: (i) Why do you feel that the issue is important and timely? (ii) What communities are expected to participate in the Special Issue? (iii) How are the background and expertise of the Guest Editorial team relevant to the proposed Special Issue?

There will be a formal approval process for the Special Issue by the journal's Editorial Board, which takes approximately one week. Upon approval, we will proceed with the launch and promotion of the Special Issue.

The Guest Editorial team as a whole is allowed to contribute a maximum of four papers to their Special Issue. Of these four, one introductory short Editorial and one long Review Article are exempt from the journal’s regular open access publication charges, while the other two articles are subject to the charges. As for the timeline of the Special Issue, we like to give submitting authors approximately six months from the initial Call for Papers to the submission deadline, another three months to the First Round of Reviews, and an additional two months to the Publication Date. However, we welcome adjustments to the submission deadline to suit your schedule.

Please feel free to let me know of any questions you might have. Otherwise, I look forward to receiving your tentative Call for Papers.

And, just if case you were wondering about the hierarchy at env-econ.net, they asked me first! I'm better than you, na-na, na-na, boo-boo, stick your head in doo-doo.

 

I'm at that point in my career where I'm ready to do something absolutely crazy

And, as always, Matt Kahn makes a timely suggestion:

In the past, I've done some writing on social capital and civic engagement.   I just put the theory to the test by volunteering to serve on USC Econ's PHD Admissions Committee.     USC Economics is world renown for its excellence in econometrics.   With Antonio Bento, Dana Goldman, me and Arie Kapteyn now all at USC (and many other research active Price School faculty),  a talented student can take his/her knowledge of econometrics and apply it to the economics of aging, health, the environment and cities.  There are many exciting possibilities and permutations here.  I strongly encourage serious students to apply. I'm especially interested in attracting students who are graduates from U.S undergraduate institutions.  Please contact me if you have any questions.

For those of you who already have a Ph.D., perhaps it is time for you to do a refresher course to see if you are still at the frontier. It is sunny and 80 degrees today on November 18th 2015 in LA. Can you say the same thing about where you are now standing?

via greeneconomics.blogspot.com

Yes, I'm definitely within the frontier. What could be a better challenge than applying to the PhD program in a top economics department and doing the whole g.d. thing all over again? Of course, I'll need to bone up on my maths. I stopped at integral calculus as an undergrad but it should be fun taking real analysis and whatnot from the folks in Walker Hall. After I get accepted I can only hope to get an assistantship that would allow me and my family to live in the sunny city of angels for 6+ years. But dang, I'm just so excited about thinking a dissertation topic that would apply my new world renown econometrics skills (I've always wanted to be able to write out my own likelihood function in "matlab" ... [is that what the kids call it?]) to some hedonic data!!! And then I could jump in the labor market and go for that R1 job that I've always dreamed about. But, I also have location preferences. I hear that the weather is always wonderful in southern CA.